Thousands of Others
by Me Or The Wallpaper
Summary: Drabbles and onshots, a few AUs. Mostly dealing with strong emotions, normally love though it's not always romantic. Includes some KuroFai, some SyaoSaku, and many stories with no pairings. And we can't forget the Mokona fic. :-D Rated for safety.
1. Thousands of Others

Disclaimer: not mine.

Warnings: For this? Not much. Spoilers, I suppose. Light KuroFai. For the rest of the oneshots and drabbles however, you never know.

"You really are one of a kind." He snorts, almost cruelly but with the tiniest edge of affection in the way one side of his mouth lifts in a small half grin. My laughter at my own previous comment slowly dies, a smile still wide on my lips. He sips his drink, not looking at me, and I smirk, leaning against the counter beside him.

"I'm not one of a kind though, Kuro-rin! There are a thousand different versions of me in a thousand different worlds! You should know that by now."

It comes without my permission, this unbidden thought. _I wonder how many of those thousands of Yuuis have lost a Fai._

The band finishes near the back of the bar, a few last rhythmic notes plucked on the coffee colored curving instrument, the base. The audience snaps their fingers instead of clapping, a thousand little taps, murmurings filling the crowd. I breathe in a distilled breath of air sweetened with smoke and liquor and my smile falters for a moment. Just a moment, but I see in his eyes when I look back that he sees it slip.

It is just a small motion he makes, moves the slightest bit closer to me so that for an instant in his shifting I feel the sleeve of his arm brush against the sleeve of mine. He glances at me for a moment, wine colored eyes searching mine before he sips again, placing the empty glass on the table when he finishes. "Yeah. I sincerely doubt they're all exactly like you, though."

I smile, and I feel it tender and real on my face, sliding on easily, a simple accident.

And it is then that my mind itself slips and I wonder how many of those thousands have a Kurogane, if all of them do, and I know with dreading certainty that I have crossed far too many lines with myself and my thoughts, but at this moment I don't let myself begin to care. I shove it back, the back of my mind and don't consider it again until a few weeks later when I am forced to. When he forces me to.

Another song starts up. More drinks are ordered.

A/N: So. I'm currently writing this pretty long fanfiction, my first real chapter one, and I'm trying to write three chapters ahead before posting each chapter. So yeah. Just so I don't get like, months behind. Because that technically could happen. Anyway, whenever I need a break from that plot-line or a break from the original work I'm writing or the original work I'm co-writing or whatever I'm doing in Creative writing, then I write drabbles. This is what is going to be published here. Little effort, shortness, and no beta-ing. However, I do like these. They're fun. So please review!


	2. Loosing Me

Disclaimer: *checks* Nope. Still not mine.

Warnings: ANGST.

"Would you shut up?! You're going to wake up the kids." He hissed as I stumbled to the floor, my fingers gripping the not so steady table and bringing a plate down with me. It made a strange noise as it clanked against the floor. It didn't break, but it rang with a kind of piercing numbness that made me think it wanted to.

For a moment my fingers itched to break it against his head. For the plate's sake. For my sake. For his sake…

"The _kids_." I spoke, and the words slurred, came unbalanced from my lips. I had never felt this way before in my life, and on some level I knew I must be drunk. For the first time in my life my throat had burned through too many glasses and my head had begun to swim in the liquid, swim swim swim on alcohol bitter and flaring and beautiful and mixing with the red, my red and his…

Right.

"Yes. The _kids_." Remember them? The Princess and the kid?" He's glaring, resigned. Close enough to reach out and grab my arm but he doesn't, because these past few months have brought him farther away. He may be so close, but really he's far away, you see. Far far away, too far away, still too close though…

Something sticks, however. The Princess. "Sakura-chan…" I murmur. My little princess, my sad little princess, and I feel a kind of ache as I remember her face when she bid me goodnight, hardened into a mask as pain and anguish stormed beneath the surface. She learns, then, from me. My poor little princess.

Suddenly I look up. "You call him 'the kid.' He's not 'the kid.'" He says nothing. Standing far away and close, arms crossed, eyes boring into mine as though trying to build a bridge across our distance without lifting a finger. It was him lifting that hand that separated us to begin with, anyway. He knows that. He must know that…

"He's not the kid." I repeat, because it seems important now. It seems very, very important. Anger flares in my chest, drunken lividness and I seethe, glaring at him. For the first time a flicker of some emotion that is not simply exhaustion flickers in his eyes, a flash of pain that both excites and scalds me. Gleeful and terrible all at once, I feel. I'll hurt him again; I'll hurt him again and again and hurt me too…

The notion tires me, and I lean back, let myself rest against the hard floor, eyes unfocused on the ceiling that seems to swirl in small designs. I feel as though the floor is tipping backwards but I am still stuck to it by some strange reverse gravity, still pinned down by something even as everything ricochets out of proper orbit.

"He's just another one lost…" I murmur. A motion before me, and he sits in that way he does, his legs bent under him, feet flat against the floor behind him with the pads and heel pointed at the ceiling, back straight and arms on his lap. It looks effortless, comfortable and stoic when he does it, but when I tried sitting that way before I felt as though my muscles were stretching too tight against the bones.

"Another one lost." I repeat. "Everyone gets lost, lost eventually. He's just a stranger with a lost one's face." _Like me_ I think, but I don't say that. It burns on the tip of my tongue though, sweeter and more poisonous than alcohol, sharp and bitter at the same time. "It's why I can't talk to him. I _hate_ him." I murmur, continuing the thought, and I wish it were true. True for both of us. It would make sense, wouldn't it?

Suddenly hands, warm and wide and calloused pads, are against me, lifting my arm and turning me sideways gently, and I look into his face, his eyes so very, very tired, and I know he knows that last phrase was only a wish.

"Well," he says flatly, and his mouth twists in some morbid irony. "You'll never loose me. Not for more than about a day, anyway."

There is a pause as I blink at him, mouth gaping, and then I laugh because it's true. It's wonderfully, horribly, disgustingly and so strangely true.

"Yeah…" I snort, looking at the ceiling, not looking at him anymore and he shifts, pushing me back on my side as I roll slightly. Damn it all, I am very, very drunk. For the first time in my life. I would have thought vampires didn't get drunk. It seems… unnecessary…

"You'll never loose me…" I murmur, wanting to repeat it, but it came up twisted because me saying it should have made it in reverse… and I find I can't really collect it now that it's escaped. Small words taking flight, escaping my mouth, which has become more of a cage lately. Cage for so many words, good and bad, and red. Of course the red.

At this thought I stiffen, and I think to try to capture the words again. But they're already gone, and I am going too. So tired.

I hear him speak though, very quiet and the words rumble. Mumbling, if it weren't for the fact that everything he says sounds clear as day. "I thought I already had."

It's almost taunting. Almost teasing, if it weren't for the fact that this is so very, very wrong. There is the edge of something sharp, something broken in his voice. Something angry and bitter. Something…

And it's an opportunity for me to take back those words, but I say nothing.

A/N: What?! Wallpaper wrote angst?! NO. WAY.

Please review! It makes me happy. Remember the golden rule!


	3. All the Mokonas

Disclaimer: Please, include an interesting one in the review, and I swear I'll use it. I'm drawing a blank here.

Warnings: FLUFF. Mokona fluff. And Mokona talking, so don't expect any first person.

Mokona has many, many different lives. It may seem like Mokona can't possibly exist in any other place, because she's just sooooo original and fantastic, but she can. Mokona helps Syaoran and Sakura and Fai and Kuro-puu in this life, and Yuko too, and in other lives Mokona sometimes helps them as well. It's not a guarantee, though. Mokona is spontaneous that way!

Mokona is usually with Clow at some point in other lives, because Clow is Mokona's favorite, as well as other Mokona. Mokona also helps three girls in a different world, at one point! One of them was the robot person that Syaoran fought in Chess. But Mokona doesn't like to think about the world of chess, so she'll stop now.

Mokona helped the girls in the other world, and in the other world Mokona looked just as attractive as Mokona is here! She had the same lovely curves and cute ears! Mokona doesn't always look like this though, even though Mokona is always beautiful, it's normally in different ways.

In one world, Mokona was a kitty owned by Clow. That world was kind of nice, because Black Mokona was there and Clow would sometimes come and live with Yuko and Black Mokona and Mokona, and Watanuki would visit and that made Black Mokona happy. This Mokona was happy too, because Watanuki would sometimes bring his cousin Syaoran, and Syaoran would sometimes bring his *giggle* _girlfriend _Sakura! And since any Mokona is a genius and knows everything, that Mokona was happy to know Syaoran and Sakura and Yuko and Clow and the other Mokona, because she knew that she had known them in other lives.

Not all lives are that good, though, even if there are good things in them. In another life Mokona was alone, and she could not find another Mokona or a Yuko or even a Clow anywhere. She lived in the streets, and she was a tiny dog with floppy white ears, and her stomach hurt because she could not find food. Fai-san found her, though! In this world, Fai was sad as well. Even sadder then the Mokona knows in this world, and he seemed to be alone. There was no Real Fai as a brother, no Syaoran and Sakura, and no Kurogane. No one that Fai loved and no one that Mokona loved, but they had each other, so it wasn't all bad. And in that world, Mokona would cheer Fai up when he was sad. They would go to a graveyard sometimes, and they would pick wildflowers and then lay them on 7 different graves, and Fai would cry. Mokona would sit on his lap though, and Fai began to smile occasional sad, real smiles. Eventually he got a job at a café, and he met a few people- a little girl Mokona remembers seeing before, Chi, and a woman with curly hair named Himawari. He became friends with them, over time, and he had more people to be with him when he was sad and when he was happy, which happened more frequently. Mokona was glad, because she admits she does worry about Fai in any world an awful lot.

There was another world where Mokona knew _everyone _it seemed, and it was wonderful! They went to school together with the Mokonas, and Yuko was the headmistress and Fai and Yuui and Kurogane were teachers, and Sakura and Syaoran and Himawari and Watanuki and Doumeki and many, many more were all the students too! That life had its problems, but everyone was happy, so Mokona was happy too.

There was another life as well where Mokona was human.

Mokona was human, and so was other Mokona. They called it the world of twins, because all the twins and allot of other people lived together. It was a world where everyone lived on the outside of where people normally lived. Twins were not aloud because they were confusing, so twins- like the Mokonas- lived in secret. Sakura did not have to live in secret, but she still visited. Kurogane was a vig-i-lan-ti. He saved Syaoran, who was illegal because he was blind in one eye. Fai and Yuui were illegal, and they saved themselves. The vampire twins were there too, but they weren't twins in this life! The one called Subaru was twins with a girl. Kamui was alone, but he was friends with everyone.

There is also a world where Mokona is a bird. Mokona likes this world because like the world with the school there are many people Mokona knows. The other Mokona is there, and every day at a park the Fai that is not the one this Mokona knows comes and feeds the birds. Kurogane started coming a little later, and Fai and Kurogane would talk about many, many things. Things that perhaps Fai wasn't supposed to know. They seemed to be friends, though.

The worlds are complicated, the Mokonas are complicated, but in each, even the terrible ones, Mokona can always be happy. As long as she can make the people she loves happy as well.

A/N: Soooo. I was thinking and I was like "there are NO Mokona fanfictions! So I decided to write one. It almost killed me to write like Mokona talks, though.

Sooo. Lets judge this on… cuteness. And not on quality. I just thought you guys might enjoy some utter fluffiness after that last one. Of course, it's me, so it's not UTTER fluff.

In fact, there were several random connections to the story I'm writing. Several pointless things too, though. And several sad things.

Reviews make the(my) world go round!


	4. Baka Honesty

Disclaimer: If I owned Tsubasa, either we'd all be able to understand it very easily or no one on the planet would know what was going on at all. You know why? Because I'm. Not. That. Brilliant.

All credit goes to CLAMP. *worships CLAMP*

Warnings: God, more angst. Don't worry, to those who care. I'm still writing that other story, it's just taking longer. And I do not count homosexuality as something to warn people about, thank you. And… well, there's really not that much here anyway. Wait, no, scratch that, Kurogane and Fai are actually in this story. So there is in fact some homosexuality.

"You're an idiot. You really are. You call me one all the time, and believe me when I say I am, but I seriously think that perhaps you win that award, Kuro-rin."

I receive a grunt at the last bit, a glare as he hears the first two syllables of his name amidst the rush of gibberish. In response I tie the cloth tighter around his arm, it has to hurt a little. It _should_ hurt, he really won't learn unless it does. At this last thought I myself let out a small hallow chuckle, and he glances up at me, frowning. Grime and blood dust his face, his eyes red and still burning from the battle. The last dregs of that look he had worn when he shoved me out of the way still linger in the pits of those eyes. He had actually _smiled._ Grinned manically as the arrow pierced his arm and his other hand gripped my shoulder.

"You should know your saving pieces from the other side." I say quietly. I keep the smile on, but the corner trembles, my tongue unused to the raw truth that is heavy on it. I don't know why I've fallen into this habit- it's hardly telling the truth when he can't understand me. Tiny fragments of honesty that fall on deaf ears- or at least unknowing ones. Maybe it's just some small and fruitless attempt to lessen the guilt that seems to weigh a little heavier on me when we work as a team- unstoppable on this battlefield, when he fights at my back and works by my side as if we actually are a single side ourselves, and… and does absolutely _ludicrously_ _stupid_ things like this. All with a grin- I've never been able to fathom why.

He seems to understand it slightly though, perhaps he feels the words' solidity even if he doesn't comprehend them, and he looks directly into my eyes, brows furrowed in angry frustration as though trying to convince the world to let him understand what the hell I just said.

"Hanasu Nihongo, baka! Omae iruhazu jibunde." That glare set as stone, boring into my face. I hear 'Hanasu Nihongo' which seems to mean 'learn my language' and 'baka' which is apparently my name. The last sentence in a blur of blunt syllables running together seamlessly, and they make about as much sense as what I've said makes to him.

He continues to stare at me in frustration though and I grin, raising both my hands and making a noncommittal noise that makes him let out an angry huff, throwing his own arms up above his head and wincing as he jerks the injured one back down. I snort, though my hands flicker forwards and tie the bandage tighter, gentler this time. It's only a small wound, but what actually matters at this moment is how he got it. My hand shakes just the smallest bit against the bandage, and I know he sees it; he seems to see _everything_ these days.

He doesn't comment though, and forcing my smile to spread back across my face I speak quietly. "Hey, Kuro-sama." He glares back at me. "I'm actually a traitor. I am Fei Wong Reed's pawn, and the only reason I'm alive at all is so that I can die and bring my twin brother back to life. I killed him, you see. That's kind of a long story though. I expect if you could understand me you'd have heard enough to know how pointless it was to shove me out of the way, you might have killed me by now if you could. Unless you knew my brother, the real Fai, and had some kind of hope I would succeed. You wouldn't be smiling any more. Because you don't like the people who are as bad as you, don't you?" Anger sparks within me, and the smile stretches wider, perversely splitting my face and for a moment I expect him to recoil. He doesn't, of course. "I'm just as terrible as you. Maybe you'd hate me for it. I don't think you hate yourself, you're much too proud and noble to do that. But I think that you know very well that you are not a good man."

His eyes meet mine, unwavering gaze, and I wonder for an instant if he would still have been like this if he could understand everything I'd just said, if I really had spilled the truth for him. I breathe through my mouth and the stretched lips ad exposed teeth feel cold.

"So because I'm not a good man either, would you kill me for it? You talked about that princess of yours and I can't imagine her as anything but holy now. You saw good in Syaoran and cared for him, I know you did. So what about me? Do you think I'm good enough to save now? I'm not good, I'm like you." And it is at this time that the smile does falter, and I'm too tired to pick it up again as it drops, defeated. "Though really, you are not as terrible as me."

The bandage is stark and pale against his dark skin, blood blooms faintly in the center with a dull red glow.

I remember his hand on my shoulder, him pressing me out of the way when my back was turned and I was too late to react. Him moving without a second thought, and that grin. That smile more real than anything I've ever been to him, to all of them. Why would he smile then?

"Not nearly that bad. Eh, Kuro-rinta?" I grin, but he doesn't glare. He stares at me, frustrated and I know he knows that the truth is coming from my mouth but he doesn't hear it. Of course.

A/N: Well. A few thoughts occurred to me today. One is that when people write about the world of Yama/Yasha/whatever, they normally… and I don't mean to insult here, but you know it's true… they normally include a whole lot of sex that really didn't have a chance of happening in the canon yet. Notice the 'yet,' by the way. So I decided to write about the most romantic thing I think could have happened in Yama. And also, I got the Tsubasa character guide! And in one part they mentioned that when Kurogane was fighting Seishiro (grrrr! *steams with hatred of Seishiro) Kurogane was grinning because he was able to feel something in a fight more deep and sublime, feeling the need to avenge his fallen comrades. So I just decided to throw in the first Kuro-sacrafice, this one also being an arm, kind of. But still.

And… well, I am worried I made Fai a little too OOC for this one. Keep in mind he's feeling angsty right now. (Gee, Fai's feeling angsty? Who'd have thought?)


	5. An Arm

Disclaimer: Still a no.

Warning: ...well, there's some blood. Canona blood though, so if it bothers you... you really shouldn't have read Tsubasa.

It was a graceful arch, blood in a scarlet shower trailing from him to that limb as it fell. The pure, unadulterated horror of that moment is marred only by the perverse grace I had found in it at the time, the way that limb plummeted beside me, fingers opening delicately as though some control still rested in them, the sword slick and scarcely dotted with his gore from the smooth, trained motion he had used to slice.

A hand at my throat, clutching the fabric and I was lifted as the strange gravity of Mokona pulled us forwards, the irises of his eye swelling with black pupil as he glared at me with such a fierce and raw emotion I could not look away before the pupil was a pinpoint of black amongst the scarlet. The wind had rushed in my ears, my own limbs had dragged uselessly behind me and we were enveloped in the black nothing of in between dimensions, and blood, his blood was everywhere. I felt it in a fine mist on my face, I felt it drip like rain, I felt it rushing in him and underneath it all I felt that carnivorous inhumanity raise it's head in longing and desperation, but _It_ had never been more easy to push aside.

Then we had landed, and I felt a scream lodged in my throat but it never came out, my mouth opened but there was only silence, howling, raging silence and him, him bleeding below me, those eyes closed and that face slack. Blood and life was seeping from him and the heart that normally brought both to the body hammered in spastic spicatto, emptying buckets of red all around, and breath was a soft strain of lungs trying to fill, trying to fill, and _surely I had to be screaming_ because I could feel it in my mouth and chest and everywhere as my hands gripped at him, but silence there was so much silence in the world because that mouth below was not moving, was scarcely breathing, and it didn't make sense that this scream I felt in every part of me raged only beneath my skin…

And then the world of only me and him was broached, and hands I didn't know were pulling at him, tugging him away from my desperate grip and the remaining arm fell limp at his side and **no no no** they couldn't take him, I couldn't stop watching that chest rise and fall and I couldn't stop hearing that wet heart pump life through him, out of him, because if I did if I left for more then a moment that would be the moment all would go still and he would be taken from me forever, and that heart would stop inside his chest and each mechanism of his brain and lungs and being would switch off and Kurogane, Kurogane would evaporate from the inside and go cold and limp and be just be another set of empty eyes that I once loved when he was behind them and please please I can not go through this again, it's too much, it's too much, it's too much…

And then a hand is on my face, and that hand brushes a tear I had hardly felt from my eye and with something like relief I can finally hear the scream that I could only feel in my throat choking me, and I breath in one shaking, sick breath of air that is choked with **so much of his blood**.

A small thumb, tiny on a smaller hand. It brushes along the rim of my cheek bone, dips into the hallows of dark shadows and collects the salty liquid of my tear as large, sadly smiling eyes stare down at my face and seem to hold me. Familiar eyes. Eyes he loves.

"It's alright," she says, and her voice lets me hear the chaos and somehow it calms me. Her voice holds me and my world stops spinning. "Kurogane will not die."

A/N: I'm kind of worried that this will be like the last one (which I didn't really like but really couldn't be sure about why, for some reason.) and I know, I know that this scene has been _so_ overdone in every fanfiction by pretty much every author and… well, that's pretty much it. I hadn't done it yet. Now I have. Ha ha.

Review. Please, really. Reviews are honestly the greatest. They tell me what I do right and what I do wrong.

Oh, and I've decided to take on one drabble prompt. If you have a prompt, put it in your review. I will choose the first one that makes me grin/smirk/laugh/blush. So really, I suppose it's not really fair that I do it that way. Oh well. ^_^

But no porn. Thank you very much. Anything else is fine though. If you want AU, crossover, canon-_ish_, friendship, romance, Mokona again… anything, really. Just tell me. I might end up doing more than one if I get more than one and if I really, really like more than one.


	6. Gravity

Disclaimer: Characters and situation- not mine. Neither is the song Gravity by the **amazing** Vienna Teng, which I listened to while I wrote this.

Warnings: Heterosexuality? Drabble-ness?

On some level she knew Syaoran was important.

He would smile and inside her something would lurch, something would soar. She felt guilty for expecting him to leap in front of her when she was in danger, yet she always knew that he would.

(Because that is the part she didn't know, but on some level had before- Syaoran loved her too.)

The presence of him standing beside her would make her heart feel as though it were a bird, a bird with all those feathers of her soul, and she could swear she felt those soft wings beating hurried humming bird rhythms on her chest.

He would hurt and she would feel each bruise and mark to her very core.

He would feel that pain and she would too.

(It was so odd to know she loved him but not know the hows or whys.)

They all grew important to her. Kurogane, who would train Syaoran, who would protect them all until the end. Mokona, who would climb onto her lap if she felt sadness bite at her insides without asking why. Fai, who would hold her even as he himself broke to pieces behind his smiling face. Syaoran, though…

Perhaps it was selfish to love him more. Or maybe it wasn't more. It was different, though. She could live without Fai. She could live without Mokona, without Kurogane. She would feel their loss like a gaping wound that would never heal, but without them she could survive.

It did not seem possible to live without Syaoran by her side, though.

Falling in love with him (the second time) had been less of an explosive realization and more of a snapping of puzzle pieces to fit into a picture already formed in her mind. Sakura knew she loved Syaoran, and he would smile at her, he would tell her sweet and wonderful things, he would sacrifice life and limb to protect all that he held dear, and it would not be the swelling realization of "I love Syaoran." Instead, with a small jolt and a beat of those wings in her chest, Sakura would go "Oh."

(That's why she loved him. She already knew. She'd already learned.)

A/N: *sob* oh god, Sakura and Syaoran **always** make me upset. I'm serious. This is just a drabble and I felt like I had tears in my eyes. People always say KuroFai is the angsty one, but they are WRONG. Syaoran and Sakura are **way** more depressing. I mean, everyone's depressing, it's CLAMP, but Syaoran and Sakura do take the cake.

And just because the authors note needs to be longer than the actual fic- about your prompt… well… I did them. I wrote them all in one big fic that turned out, clearly, to not be a drabble. The problem is… it's like nothing I've ever written before. It's romance. Straight up AU romance between Kurogane and Fai. And that's just it- you guys have read the romance I do. I mean, I had someone kiss someone else once as they died. I had that short little Like and Hate thing. And in The Heart Box, there was as much SyaoranXSakura as is possible when Sakura is never even there, but this was just… it had the word love in it and everything. I don't know if I should upload it, because not only am I unused to this kind of thing, but I can't even begin to know if it's good… oh well. I'll just put it in here. But I think I will get it betaed… it's pretty long…


	7. The Life of FaiYUUI

Disclaimer: *sigh* I'm so tired of these. Someone make up something witty to say that this isn't mine, because I certainly don't feel like it. I mean, you're all smart enough to know I'm not CLAMP, right?

Warnings: Um… brotherly love? Canon?

In the beginning Yuui had felt Fai as a separate part of him, felt his movements and his alive-ness as if he were simply a limb, disconnected and able to roam far from his own body. Not too far, though. In the beginning they were never very far apart. Their room was the same, even their bed was the same, a habit formed when they were babies (before then) in their crib, and their mother had pressed their small, cooing bodies close to remind them of the dark and warm world they had left behind.

Fai was the extension of Yuui's hand, the thing that wove into his fingers. They were nothing alike, perhaps, in certain senses. Really though, that only added as proof. On some level, they were the same person because Yuui liked outside and Fai liked inside, because Yuui liked light and Fai liked dark, because Yuui liked sweet and Fai liked salt. They were a person split in two, faces formed of the other's, souls formed of the other's. They were unlucky, the world said, but in the beginning they felt luck run thick and sweet through their lives like blood in one single living being between their clasped hands.

Yuui had not imagined a world where he went on breathing and Fai did not. It was an impossibility. They had come into this world together, so it was not possible that one could have life torn from them and the other not feel the wound so deeply that they fell apart at their frayed seems. Though it made no sense, Yuui had imagined a future where both grew old. Where both had their separate lives and loves, but did not move away from the lush life of the palace. What reason was there to ever leave the gardens outside anyway, except perhaps to travel? Yuui liked the idea of travel, but it was only with Fai. They would lie side by side on their parents' great double bed, a map spread out before them; both with their small chins resting on identical folded arms. "Look! Here, we read a book about this place. Someday, we'll go here." Yuui would say, feverish and feeling the craving to tread deep in his young soul.

Fai would smile a shrug, because he would follow his brother. _He_ had never spoken of plans for his future, though. It had remained blank, as though on some level Fai knew it was pointless…

No.

But they had always made their plans together, and in the imagined end, Yuui had seen them old together- grey hair and identical wrinkles, identical lives, identical large blue eyes, TWO large blue eyes. Still together in the garden of the palace. They would die together as well, because it was impossible for one to live without the other by their side.

And then any plans had been ripped away, and that hand forced from his. **They** had forced that second half of him from him, had thrown one in hell and tried to force the other into heaven, had left them to not-rot in their separate tortures and **separate** eternities.

Then Fai had been there, his face identical for the last time, his eyes widening as Yuui's had, and Fai- No, NO, Yuui had fallen. **Yuui** had crumbled at the bottom of that tower, and Fai had kept on living, happy of course, through his brother's precious lie.

And Fai had felt that wound, had felt himself come apart at the seams, and had felt death as half of him died with his twin. But this was the miracle- in the end, he kept on living. His heart beat out the rhythm of life in his chest, his lungs filled and emptied, filled and emptied, bringing more life to the wrong half.

_Two small boys in their parents' huge double bed, both with small chins resting on hands, eyes running over a map of the places they'll go. Future spread out paved in gold before them, no hint that anything will ever change. Two faces, four blue eyes._

_"Someday, we'll go here."_

It was Fai who traveled in the end. Fai who let his second father, his Ashura (but no, it had been Yuui's Ashura, not Fai's, and that's probably why it all went wrong, because Fai couldn't have done something like that, couldn't have made so much go to hell, Fai was perfect) sleep in the bottom of that watery tomb, and Fai who finally felt the world moving beneath his feet as he saw the world- the worlds.

Fai who beamed and saw everything with a perfect smile, preserved and unperverted by life, frozen in innocence and death.

But no…

There were too many times when Yuui started living.

The smile would falter, the life of Fai would suddenly find itself snared and interrupted (all too easily, lately) by Yuui, who seemed to stumble into the life of Fai, smash through all the careful masks and glees and stand there, dazed and smiling sadly or sobbing or fighting or dying or lying with too shallow a mask.

In these moments Yuui would feel the world twist around him, feel that dead connection that was Fai, that he still sensed, and inside his mind whisper hurriedly "I'm sorry." Before trying to step back. Trying to stop living, stop caring and loving when it was not his life to care and love in.

It was harder each time to bring Fai back, when before Fai would fall into his face easily. Fai was the real one, after all. Fai was the one who should exist right now.

_They had come into this world together, so it was not possible that one could have life torn from them and the other not feel the wound tear so deeply at their very being that they fell apart at their frayed seams._

Was it selfish to want Fai to be the one left behind?

"No. No. It couldn't be. Fai's life was the one that should have been saved, it was hitsuzen, it was truth, and Yuui was nothing more than a mar on truth. Live without living, preserve the place for Fai until he can stretch his own real limbs and feel my absence, however selfish and terrible and murderous an absence it is…"

But then the pieces of Fai's life and Fai's face and Fai's future were being slowly taken away. Whatever shriveled heart of Yuui remains beating in the frame of them, the body left over from their death, it belongs to Fai. Fai, the real one. But Yuui's life, selfish as it was, was sneaking in to Fai's saved life. Loving things, disliking things, living so surely it had to be damned.

And then there were things being given to Yuui. The preservation of Yuui's life, the cursed and horrible thing behind the life of Fai. Yuui, taken by the throat and brought gasping and sobbing to the surface, being forced to live by yet again leaching the life out of another. Sucking down blood to live, in the end. If Yuui had to live, he thought, this way of doing so suited him fine. It was familiar, in its own sick way.

But now Yuui loved, and Yuui lived for her- a little girl, his princess, who he would serve until Fai took his rightful place.

_I should have let Fai kill me, back then. _He thinks, and then feels guilty for thinking it. _ But Fai wouldn't have killed me. He would never have chosen to save himself. I'm the murderer, not him_

And then there is another life that the cursed existence of Yuui has taken. That one little life he swore to protect, and had to see that, had to watch her soul literally tear itself from her body and know that it was her blood that trailed red and poisonous across his own cursed hands_._

And it is time to end it.

This life of Yuui, this monstrosity that rose to the surface and tried without it's own permission to suck the marrow out of a life that wasn't his, wasn't its. The Yuui that tried to live for a princess and killed her, killed another loved thing. It's time to end it. No more. And even ending it is selfish, because now Yuui wants to die. Wants it with an intensity unimaginable, so strongly he is almost selfish again, almost kills Fai with him in that single end, but is stopped by another (doomed) hand on his arm.

_Don't hurt anyone else with that sword. Even yourself._

And Yuui, the monstrosity, the demon, the horrible evil to stand against the innocent untainted goodness of Fai, is saved yet again.

But then later all is revealed, and the twisted lies of Yuui are told to all those who might have at one point wished to save him. Just one eye now, but it is wide, it meets that glare that has urged him to live so often before, and a sword is drawn, a blade drawn against him, and he has the selfishness to want to sob "NO!" into the heavens, to want to say "Not him, not him," chant it over and over again as a mantra.

Yuui will kill one more loved thing tonight.

All for the sake of Fai. The first second half of Yuui that died by his hand.

And his fingers shake.

But they rise.

And Kurogane's sword rises as well.

And Fai shatters in his arms, all masks shatter, all pretense that it was FAI who survived and YUUI who fell to his death at that tower, because it had been so HARD(EASY) to see who had died that day, and now it was impossible to say it was impossible, because it was so very clearly Fai that stopped living, and Yuui breathed the air Fai should have breathed, lived the life Fai should have lived, and-

And.

_I did not kill my brother._

But now they are trapped and the world is crumbling around Yuui yet again. It's possible though, this time, to die. To send that crumpled body of his princess who is not yet dead, to save the boy that holds her tight against his chest, to save the man who stands over him now, a raw terror of a world gone wild in his eyes as those he does care for does love seem to be dying with it, two red eyes. It is possible to die to save another this time, there is no trick, there is daunting truth and the greatest luck he has ever had is that he can feel the bitterness of not being able to keep that hand holding his wrist and follow. He is prepared to die. And he feels the regret of not being able to live as he never has before, a kind of lovely selfishness he knows he cannot give in to.

But Kurogane's sword is rising again.

It should have been Yuui's blood that was spilt.

Kurogane's blood in a glorious arch, Kurogane's face, Kurogane's eyes glaring down at him as Yuui is saved again.

As more blood is on his face.

As more life is forced into him.

And Kurogane looks so very **sure**.

And Yuui lived.

A/N: Wow. Ok, the following two fics- I am so very unsure about them. This is just something that I wrote a while ago and just… attempted to perfect. I'm a bit worried about how it turned out, it might be cheesy. But for the next two fics, cheesy will be a rising threat. Oh well. I suppose it's just a collection of unbetaed drabbles. ^_^'

Oh! And for those who I accidentally confused- I do in fact have internet access, but I will be very busy. Doing vacation things. Does that count as busy? Lets just say it does.


	8. Empty

Disclaimer: *checks* Still a no.

Warnings: Hey, everyone else has a feeding scene! Why not me? Oh, and... well, this is more... well, I explained it in the end. I hate long beginning author's notes. Oh, and this is a drabble that I don't consider as good as my some of my other work, but I can never be sure with my stuff. You might like it, who knows?) And un-beta-ed

The truth was that when Fai's tongue (rough almost like a cat's on his cut skin he had realized, and wasn't that (in a twisted way) ironic?) ran along the length of his bloodied wrist, he felt nothing. Fai was close, there was no way he could stand the now normal 6 feet away, not while he was 'feeding,' while sucking down the life and blood Kurogane would offer him from his own wrist. He would see hair fall over one livid eye, watch blood fleck around the twisted grin, run over his lips and perhaps in a gory, disgusting way he should have felt desire stir in him. Two of the few things he had lived for- spilled blood and this idiot- before him combined into one lovely monstrosity. When he felt Fai's heart beat so near his own, when he felt Fai's mouth on his wrist and his hands, light as a feather as if to remind him of their evanescentness, a finger rested on his arm and the soft thrum of his pulse- there was only a gouged absence. Both their hearts beat and Fai's tongue lapped up his blood, and it meant nothing. Because he knew that in both their twisted souls if Fai did not hate him now this would have meant something sick and lovely.

So that was the way it worked. He felt nothing. And that was worse than any painful lust or love.

A tongue on his skin left him blank and emptied out, and it was so strange that his hand on that arm so long ago had possessed meaning engraved and sewn into every fragile piece of it.

A/N: So yeah. Not, I suppose, my usual style. But I'm in a mood, so I won't write in my usual style. You get romance. A whole freaking lot of romance right now, because like I said, I'm in a mood. Don't get too used to it though! My main genre is still friendship and adventure with a side order of romance and oh so much character analysis for dessert. And I swear, I really do, the prompt story is coming. As is my chapter story. And this romance thing. And something on Himawari. I was actually going to wait to have this beta-ed, but then I decided I was going to freak out eventually if I have any more stuff on my waiting-to-be-beta-ed-and-finished list.

Review please!


	9. The Half That Sins

Disclaimer: More of this is actually mine than anything I've ever posted on fanfiction dot net, but I suppose it is an exercise on characters set into a specific setting. Kind of. But Kurogane and Fai are not mine. They're CLAMP's. Florida is not mine either. Or Osaka. Or Chopsticks. Or the prompts chopsticks, apples, legal/laws, smoke, light in water, feathers, aches, green, oil, shovels, boots, or paper.

Warning: AU. Homosexuality is not a warning, though I do warn about slight emoness.

Very Short Note: Yes. This is the infamous romance.

~-~-~-~-~-

It started when we were too young to really understand it, and when the world was, too. Though we would grow up long before the world did.

I still remember his hands, nails bitten to the quick and fingers sure as they wrapped my own clumsy digits around the two thin sticks.

"Like **this**." He said impatiently, pulling the chopsticks from my fingers and wrapping his own around them, clicking the narrow ends together expertly. His small face was still set into a frown, the edges still soft from baby fat that had not yet melted away with age, though the eyes were dark and sure as they always would be.

Taking my hand, he pulled my index finger, curling it around the wood. "Come on," He said "Like a pencil, it's easy."

"It is not easy! It's only easy for you 'cause you're Japanese." I shot back, frowning. My hand quivered around the sticks, and I remember my heart had been beating quickly, my face red. I didn't like it when I failed to do something he could do, especially in front of him.

"Being Japanese has nothing to do with it!" Kurogane shot back, glaring at me. "Chinese people and Vietnamese people do it!"

"I'm not Chinese or Vietnamese or Japanese. I'm just white." I said back, frowning.

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Well, that doesn't mean anything. You should still be able to use chopsticks." He crossed his arms over the worn, threadbare green T-shirt, the faded image of some superhero donning the front. Fingers quivering, I clutched too tightly at the chopsticks.

They wobbled in my hand, but I ignored it, instead bringing them oh-so-slowly to the bowl of fruit salad Kurogane's mother had brought out for us on the porch, delicately approaching one slowly browning lump of sliced apple. When I reached it though, I found that it was actually quite impossible to open and close the chopsticks while still holding them. One stick began to slip as my fingers slowly spread, willing the chopsticks to open wide as well, and desperate not to mess up **again** I clutched suddenly at them, holding them completely incorrectly now with the wood lined up together inside my closed fist.

I heard Kurogane sigh impatiently above me and I scowled. Wanting to prove myself, I ignored the mistake of my fingers and simply stabbed down into the apple, frothy juice foaming where the sticks bit into it, and lifted my skewered fruit, grinning brilliantly at him.

"You know what, whatever. Just stab things, if you want to." He grumbled, reaching into the bowl and grabbing his own apple slice for himself, shoving the whole thing into his mouth and leaning back on the floor. His bare feet stretched out and pressed on the edge of the mosquito net.

We were on his porch, having been forbidden to really go on a camping trip in the backyard by the adults for fear of alligators and mosquitoes and snakes and all manner of creatures that could bring harm to 2 overly confidant 7 year old boys. Instead, Kurogane's mother had hung a net around the railing and brought out a few chairs, draping a blanket over to create a makeshift tent. The steady pale glow of an old camping lantern was our fire, which we had set outside our 'tent' surrounded by a circle of rocks we had dug up using an old shovel from outside to make it more realistic.

When Kurogane lay down the lantern threw one half of his face into sharp detail, making the sun tanned skin glow pale, and each crevice and shadow on his skin grow deeper so that the young face seemed aged. The other half of the face was blotted shadow, the white of one eye standing out against the black. Outside we could hear the chaos of the cicadas crying to each other and the low to high rumbling bellows of frogs, as well as the occasional lap of water that our overactive imaginations had long ago turned to the movements of an enormous gator with gleeful terror.

I had more pressing matters than gators on my mind right now, though. I looked down at him for a moment, my mouth working slowly as it opened, and when I spoke it seemed too quiet to be me and he noticed and looked up.

"Kurogane…"

There was a silence, more words needing to be said but with me not knowing how to say them. Finally, he broke it impatiently, "Yeah, what?" He asked.

"You know how at weddings people kiss?"

That got his attention. He sat up and squinted at me, eyes and nose wrinkling, entire expression succumbing to confusion. Children are all so very easy to read. "Yeah." He said, waiting for me to continue.

"Well, my Mama said that at weddings, the kiss means that they're promising to be together forever and everything, and so they're not going to leave, and I know it's kind of sappy, but I suppose what the point is, I mean, well, we'realwaysgoingtobefriendsright?"

I was rambling, and it came out too fast, but of course he understood it. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline, and despite the fact that we were both too little to actually understand any of these implications and reasons, the slightest tinge of a blush stained his cheeks, flushing under his dark eyes, but he kept them fixed on me. "Well yeah. Where are you getting these ideas all of the sudden?"

"I don't know." I said, which wasn't true and we both knew it, it was just something to say before I got what I honestly meant out. "Well… my Mama said that it was a promise to always be with someone. And… well, you know how Fai…." I had been too young to understand any of this either, but it still made me pause, take a deep breath, but not choke. I was too big to cry about anything. "You know how Fai has that heart condition, so Mama says he won't always be with us. But you- you've got a good heart. But I don't know… it's just, you told me that you never, ever break your promises, and you really did prove it that one time when you got my Frisbee stuck on the roof and you promised you'd get it down and you actually did even though you got in **huge** trouble for it… so anyway, I just want… I want to make sure. If you promise, I think maybe… well, you won't be able to leave, will you?"

Kurogane shook his head thoughtfully. "No." He said, "I've never broken a promise." Then he grinned a crooked, gap toothed grin. "My dad said that a man's honor is in his words and actions. So you must never break your word, and you must always act a-core-ding-lee."

I nodded. I could feel my heart, it seemed to beat softly but so fast against my chest, so my breath seemed to almost quiver as I exhaled. "So," I said quietly, so very quietly, because I did want this promise for so many reasons, and half of them I didn't even begin to understand at all, but I was too little to care, "You're going to promise not to leave?" I was frowning, and I almost never frowned, so he knew I was being very serious. He sat completely up and nodded slowly. Lips pursed in concentration as he did so, brow furrowed with intensity. And I looked just as intensely back at him.

"I promise I won't leave you." He said simply. And his face flushed, and then perhaps because he didn't want to sound girly and mushy he added, "You'd probably end up doing stupid things anyway."

I smiled at him, I couldn't help it, and at that moment he did lean forward and kissed my small, smiling mouth. It was just a typical first kiss, and I smelled the apple on his mouth, but I do remember one thing specifically- his hand came down and gripped mine for the millisecond that our lips had pressed together, fingers clutching so fiercely I had to believe that even when we grew older and what had just happened made either less or more sense he would still keep his promise and he would still never leave.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Years went by and it did start to make more sense, what we had done, but the world started explaining it to us in a way that made it a topic we put behind us, something brought up once by accident when watching a movie that questioned first kisses. Our eyes catching for an instant in the dim flickering of the television screen, his wide and dark, eyebrows up, and I remembered his face back then when I had first asked about kissing and promising and… marriage.

We looked away quickly, and we watched a _girl_ and a _boy_ kiss on the television screen as the movie ended. Afterwards we talked about the violent scenes, the adventure scenes, the friendship, and did not mention the romantic part at all. This wasn't unusual, we didn't normally talk at all about the romantic bits of movies we saw, normally Kurogane and I found them pretty dull, but this one seemed to leave a gap in our conversation where we didn't discuss it. And though perhaps we didn't normally look at each other every moment as we spoke, in the moments where our eyes weren't on each other I felt we were avoiding eye contact.

There was one more time when he mentioned it, though.

Walking back from a small party that had included a few other friends, he had laughed slightly, awkwardly almost, and turned to me. "Hey," He said, "Do you remember that time I promised I'd marry you?"

Something in my stomach dropped, and quite suddenly I wanted to be as far away from him as I possibly could be. I laughed and even to someone who didn't know me it probably would have sounded fake. He raised his eyebrows.

"Uh, no." I lied, remembering the promise. The kiss.

He stopped dead in his tracks, and it seemed to take me a great effort to turn around. His face was a mix of unreadable emotions- anger in the brows, but the mouth quivered before he opened it as though he had choked back some words before what he was saying now. "Yes you do." He said flatly.

I laughed again, and it sounded like a hyena so I stopped. "No, I don't."

"Yes, you do Yuui. Don't lie." I winced. He never used my name, it was always 'Blondie' or 'Idiot' or some other insulting-but-not-really-because-it's-almost-a-joke nickname.

"Uh, no, I don't, **Kurogane**." I said, because I normally called him Kuro anyway, but he didn't wince. "And besides," I added, still smiling, my mouth dry. "Isn't that kind of like, illegal, and all that?"

"Idiot, I'm not **asking** you to, I'm asking if you remember, which you **do**, so now I just want you to admit it!"

Both of us went up scarlet. I murmured through my smiling teeth "Yes. I think I do remember now. So?"

He didn't answer, but he stared at me so very oddly, frustrated at something. Probably me. I didn't know why though, that nonsense when we were kids wasn't _all_ my fault.

He didn't have to kiss me. He could have chosen not to.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

I had always known that Fai was going to leave me.

We had started out identical when we were very young, except for the small detail that he had the scars over his chest and I did not. That he tired out before me, and that he had to be hooked up to the machine when he did sleep. But Fai wasn't the boy with the 'condition,' he was my brother. He was the boy who had come into this world with me and shared my face, and since he shared my face on some level he must have shared my soul. It made sense to me that it would be that way.

But I realized as I grew taller and stronger and he remained frail and week that we were not the same, no matter how much I wished I could somehow combine us so that he could share my good, strong, healthy body.

Fai was like this because of some mistake before birth, and of course in some way I always wondered…

Well, it was only natural to wonder. It's not like anyone else had been with him in there.

But when I was little I had noticed small things that had perhaps meant nothing. It seemed to me that when I succeeded any small victory, Fai would suffer correspondingly. I know now that Fai had to go to the hospital regularly, would often get sick, so often that it was only natural that at times these things would fall directly after some luck would come to me. When I was young though, I connected the two. Perhaps it was just that guilt that I could not quench that it had been I who pulled away his chances of life in the beginning, that even then I had been the stronger force that before even normal thoughts could function cannibalized this other half of me, sucking nutrients and blood from him. So that this unreal comparison made me think that my very existence, my good fortune to be able to live into adult hood, my very _happiness_ was what at this very moment sucked at Fai's life, pulled his already hesitant existence to the edge.

I had always known that Fai was going to leave me.

Yet on some level, I hadn't expected it to happen. I couldn't imagine a life without him, yet I even thought when I was small I thought about asking him to promise not to leave me as well, I realized it wouldn't work. Fai **did** lie to me. He told me sometimes when he was in bed, so small, so frail, and perspiration standing out on his brown "I'm fine, really." And in so many words the same. He had always told me the words that would make me the most comfortable, so I didn't ask him to make that promise, because I didn't want to be angry with him for breaking it when he did leave me.

And also, it was Kurogane's promise. I couldn't have asked Fai.

But when he did die, at the age of 14, I could not help the guilt from flooding me.

Because I should have made him promise- no- I should have made him **swear** that he would never, ever leave me. Or maybe better yet, I should have sworn to never leave him. And then perhaps whatever it is that might govern life would have realized that we were never meant to be split off in the beginning, that Fai and I, on some level, had to be the **same person**, so one of us couldn't have died while the other stayed alive.

I stood in a morning much too sunny as a priest spoke aloud about my brother, who he'd never met. I felt the sun hot against my black suit cladden back and felt as though this entire black clothed funeral party was soaking up all the warmth there was in the world…

My brother's casket had white flowers dripping over the top.

My brother's casket was painted a deep, ebony piano key black.

My brother's casket reflected the sun, and I could see my own wavering reflection in it.

My brother's casket was so small.

Beside me, my mother seemed to sway, unsteady on her feet. Tears leaked from her eyes though she did not acknowledge them or make a sound, as though this pain had become so normal, so routine, that it was impossible to even see that it existed anymore. My father lifted a hand and dragged it over his face as though to feel and know that this horrible lost expression of grief I saw there was real. He never cried, but at this time he did.

I didn't cry though. I felt no pain.

That was just it though, there was no pain. Perhaps if there had been it would have been bearable, but it was not any kind of agony I felt. That existence I had led before where my happiness sucked away my brother's life had turned on me, and now I was simply empty empty empty and the small blank spot beside me where Fai always would have stood seemed ludicrous in its own emptiness.

I had always known I would loose Fai… it hadn't helped me prepare at all to know.

But now my breath had come slow and quavering, and the world around me and my place in it was suddenly unsure- I had never believed Fai would really die, that was impossible. As a child I had in moment of fancy imagined a future where I was grown and well and I had my grown up brother to call on the phone, to visit, to laugh with. Now that future had shifted to something dark and bleak and terrible and unknown. Now I didn't know who was in that casket, which one of us had died…

But then there was a hand on my arm, at my elbow, and it squeezed so hard I thought it would bruise. I took in a breath and for the first time the proceedings of the funeral were thrown into sharp detail, and I looked at the casket as a whole instead of each small detail of the outside, and I thought "my brother is inside there."

And then I began to cry. He did not hold me, but he stepped closer. The hand softened on my arm, another came and rested on my shoulder. And then it was almost, _almost_ like he was holding me, because I leaned against his chest and for a moment him holding me was all I wanted in the world…

But I just leaned against his chest for now, his broad hand gentle on my shoulder- comforting, a very slow almost nonexistent movement up and down. I could feel the calloused pads of his fingers run over the threads of my suit jacket, a sound like soft sandpaper.

I could feel his heart beating against my shoulder.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

It is strange to grieve a child's death. Especially the death of a twin.

I grew older, more worldly, I started to become an adult. Yet in my mind, Fai remained the same. He would not grow older. His voice would never deepen, his face never become angular. His hands would always be those small pudgy things with short baby fingers, his eyes always too big for his head. There was no grown up Fai- he had never existed, he never would. So Fai remained small and innocent as the years hardened me, as I learned about the sorrow and injustice of the world, as I learned that evil existed and was more complex than I had believed it to be based on books and television.

Fai though remained unblemished. He remained blissfully ignorant. He remained dead, frozen at the age of fourteen and still appearing to be about 10 because of his 'condition.'

Fai continued to be that tiny, perfect version of me, as though when we were split in half at the very beginning of our time, I was the half that was sin and wrong and **horrible**, and he was the perfect child half, the perfect, perfect child half who didn't-

Who-

I mean…

Who wasn't… couldn't have been-

… Kurogane-

I was the half that sinned, in all manner of thought and being. I tried though, when I realized this specific sin had found its way inside me, had seemed to take hold of both my heart and my body. I tried to make it go away, to ignore it, and as always I ended up pretending it wasn't there at all, and I smiled even as I felt this **wrongness** (because it was wrong, so very very wrong, I knew that, everyone knew that) gnawing at my core whenever He was there. When He granted me with a rare smile, one side of his mouth lifting and dark eyes seeming to dance. When He became angry after I had jokingly made fun of him. When He would just casually touch me- my shoulder, my arm, just bumping into him accidentally. When He stood by my side…

I was the half that sinned.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

The light caught in the water, wavering in distorted rainbows and gleaming like a skin of oil over the surface, hazy as if through smoke. A feather drifted across that surface, seeming to hover unreal in dark empty space. Through my elbows leaning on the rail I suddenly felt the bridge quake as heavy boots crossed towards me. I didn't turn around, but I felt as if I could feel him there. Taller than me, arms shoved deep into pockets, hunched over from looking at a world that was normally shorter than him.

He was the first to speak, and when he did I turned around, surprised. It came out almost nervous, the simple word. "Hey." He said in an exhale.

I blinked. "Hey, Kuro." I answered. And then I grinned, sadly. "So, I guess we won't be seeing each other for a while, what with you going abroad to Japan. So this is goodbye for now, eh?" Something in me hurts, a small, twisting ache at the words, but I ignore it. He's nervous, shifting slightly on his feet. His hands are shoved deep into those pockets, and his eyes are fixed on me in an almost angry desperation, as though trying to read the answer to something, though I have no idea what he's asked.

"You-" He starts to say, and I blink, but then he finishes "Yuui," so it's my rarely spoken name, and not just the word. 'You.' He continues. "Listen, I, uh, want to give this to you. So yeah." And then a piece of paper folded so small it doesn't close all the way is shoved into my hand. I stare down at it.

Neither one of us moves. Below, the water rushes over the rocks. Wind moves in the trees. Kurogane continues to glare at me.

"Should I open it now?" I ask.

He seems to flinch, a painful twitch in his face. "You could." He says with clear disdain.

I laugh, and it's real, and inside my own sinful mind I think 'there are very few people besides him who've made me happy like this since Fai died. And now he's leaving. Even if he did promise.' And for an instant I feel _almost_ like this laughter is going to turn into sobbing, but it doesn't, because I'm stronger than that. Marginally. "Ok," I say. "I'll just wait, then. Why? What's in it?"

"Oh, you know. Just general stuff. I mean- I'm not going to be there to remind you when you're being an absolute retard. And I probably won't be able to call you an idiot nearly as often. Oh, and in case you go off on one of your emo-tangents, there's something in there to knock some sense in to ya." And then quietly, "hopefully."

I laugh, and it's real and sad. "Oh, so this is Kuro, neatly folded up into a few pieces of paper?" I ask softly. He flushes and glares in that routine way of his, and my fingers cradle the paper.

And then, without warning, his arms are around me.

Perhaps he didn't plan it, but he reached forwards and gripped my shoulders tight in his hands, pulling me to him and holding me with both arms wrapped tight around. I can feel his fingers in fists against my back, my mouth and nose are pressed into his shoulder, and I am held so closely against him that I can feel his heart hammering against mine, just as loud, blood through both our separate bodies so close, right now I can't really tell which heart beat is mine and which is his…

As quickly as it happened he pulled away, face expressionless. "See ya." He said flatly, and he turned and walked slowly away, turning back once to lift a hand in farewell. I waved back slowly, trying not to think about what just happened.

After he's gone I sit down and lean back against the rail, shutting my eyes and remembering without really thinking about it the feeling of his arms around me. Tiny things, like the sound my hand made when the fabric of his shirt rushed against it when his arms encircled me. A heart hammering against my own, and the feeling of another warm chest rising and falling with each breath. How, perhaps, it would have felt if that… whatever it was had lasted more than a single brief moment, and I had turned my head and rested, my ear against his shoulder, my breath on his neck…

Yep. Not really thinking about it.

I let out a huff of air, angry with myself, and take out the paper, unfolding it.

Hey, Yuui.

So anyway, I'm in love with you.

Just thought that was something I should say at least once. And I didn't really want to say it out loud, so there you go. Inside a letter it goes.

And you know what? I'm pretty sure you love me too, and you're just a coward and that's why you pretend not to remember that time when we were kids and we kissed and I told you I'd marry you, or why you pulled away from me when I actually did try to hug you after your brother's funeral. I very rarely hug people, you should know that.

Before you say anything, I know it's illegal (actually, it's not illegal everywhere, it's just illegal in the stuck up places like here and a majority of the other states. But not everywhere. But I'm not asking you to marry me right now) but frankly, I don't care. I know that most of the people from this town wouldn't talk to me again if they knew, what with it being 'sinful' and all that, but I don't care.

If you were to stop talking to me though, I'd have a problem with that.

But I know you aren't.

However, now that you know about your gay friend, I can speak freely about this other stuff. Not that the two are connected; I mean, I've actually never lied to you. I mean that. But I do need to figure out a way that I can still generally not leave you while I'm in Osaka and you're in Florida, so I decided on a collection of all these different responses I would have to given situations. So you can just take this out of your pocket every time you know you're being an idiot or a jackass to yourself and hopefully this will steer you right.

First of all, stop smiling when you don't mean it. I've said it before, but you should know that for some insane reason most people are just stupid and actually believe you when you do that, which is bad. Because I won't be there to wipe that stupid grin off your face. If you want to cry, cry. You'll meet new friends, so just go to one of them. Or call me. We'll both be living the starving lives of freshman in college, but if you really want to waste money phoning me in Osaka, go ahead. I don't mind. Actually, if you really are broke, just call collect. I don't mind.

Second of all, don't lie. Fai existed. You are Yuui. No lying.

Thirdly, if you pretend to get drunk, or if you're really drunk, don't trust your new friends because they're not me and I don't know them and really you're not always the best at judging people so the solution would be to NOT GET DRUNK again, because it sucks enough when I have to deal with it!

Damn it you idiot, you're making me angry through a letter. You're not even talking to me and I'm pissed.

I love you, though. Again, I'm never going to say it out loud. But here it is. I felt it needed to be said, because my Dad basically told my Mom that every single day, and it seemed to be important then. So there you have it.

And you should know that counting my parents, you are the first person I've ever said it to. I am not saying that's good or right. It's just the way it ended up being.

See you later.

-Kurogane

~:-D~

A/N: Dear god, do you people remember when I asked for prompts for a drabble? Well, it didn't turn out as a drabble, did it?

Lol, anyway, I actually did manage to include I think all of my prompts. If you look closely, I did include apples and chopsticks, legal/laws, smoke, light in water, feathers, aches, green, oil, shovels, boots, and paper. Apples and Chopsticks the most though, since that was the original prompt.

But god, this is so long for what was going to be a drabble…

And before anyone freaks out, the letter confession was originally inspired by a book I read a long, long time ago (then I copied it in an original work) and then I was reminded of it and inspired again by the fanfiction 'Visibility' which I hope will be finished, because it's a very good idea. Unfortunately, that particular author seems to collect unfinished good ideas.

Anyway. I put allot of work into this. In fact, it's also my creative writing homework (my teacher's going to be simply thrilled to get fanfiction (she said sarcastically)) So reviews would be… very, very, very, very nice. Like, extremely nice. I am a little worried though, because I feel I didn't put enough characterization into this one, and it is **definitely** sappier than **ANYTHING** I have **EVER** written before. And also I know during parts of it I definitely felt as though it was… I don't know, like there was just something wrong with it, I'm not sure. Like, honestly, you should NEVER expect me to write this sappy again (and yet it still might happen…) so yeah, you could say I'm a bit unused to it, despite the fact that I've been writing allot of romance lately.

But please- review and tell me what I did right and wrong.


	10. Never Sorry

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Warnings: Can't say any, or else it'll be longer then the actual story.

As he screams, as his nails bite into the skin of my chest and everything about him trembles in the agony- as his eyes glaze over from dull torture, milky and high; as I can practically see those waves of pain clawing through his body, digging up in his veins, twisting the innards- the unbidden urge to say I'm sorry comes through me if only for an instant, because for a moment I am.

But no. I am _not_ sorry. In the beginning She had died because She had refused to be selfish, and I had to watch Her work day by day as she coughed up the juice of her lungs, spat those tiny speckled pieces, those fragments of their decay into her hand. As I watched the life drain from her mouth. No one else will die for that, and if I have to drag him through pain unimaginable and he BEGS me to let him die I will not let go. She coughed up blood and he will suck down mine, leach off of my life if that's what it takes, despise every minute spent breathing but he WILL breath, he WILL stay alive, and I will never be sorry that his heart kept beating. Even if he does scream.

A/N: If you like this, I'm glad. It literally took me about five minutes- writing, editing, rereading, and uploading. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy reviews though...

In fact, three more reviews and I'll have 50. And then of course I'd just have to thank you all by starting to put my chapter fanfiction up. So yeah! Wouldn't that be lovely...


	11. 13 song stories

A/N: Ok, so a whole while ago, I heard of this thing where you put your ipod on shuffle and then write little snippets for thirteen songs for a fan thing or an original thing or what. The only problem is, you only have until the song if over to write and edit and complete what you have. So here we have my absolutely raw, unedited random stuffs. I thought it was fun to do though, so you might think it was fun to write.

And to those of you who care- #8 is actually a mini sequal to that epically long fic I wrote a while ago about Syaoran and Kurogane in the civil war called The Heart Box. This one focused more on Fai and Kurogane in that universe though, and it assumes Syaoran lived. Which possibly didn't happen in the actual AU, I forget what I thought for it at the time.

Disclaimer: Writing= mine. AU ideas=mine. Characters=CLAMP's.

Warning: UNEDITED. I MEAN, SERIOUSLY. I ONLY HAD A LITTLE BIT OF TIME. SO IF YOU CARE SO MUCH IT'LL BOTHER YOU ABOUT GRAMMAR AND GENERAL CORRECTNESS OF SENTENCES, DON'T READ THIS. IF YOU JUST WANT LITTLE STORIES, GO AHEAD.

1) Wake Up by Arcade Fire

It had been easy when they were young to forget everything.

Titles, names, families- all were unimportant. Syaoran saw Sakura and at first saw his mother, but the image fell away. Opinions didn't matter. Strangeness didn't matter. Just that he loved her, in every sense, in all senses, no matter who she was to him.

2) Impossible by The Shout Out Louds

It is odd that my blood runs in my veins.

I froze, didn't I? My understanding was that my time had stopped. That the rawest, realest rule of the universe had been undone by his wish, his precious, terrible wish to keep my heart beating. But what confused me was that I had kept living.

I had not viewed the world as perfect. Even in the all too fleeting moments when I had been with him and I realized how very un-whole my soul was without, I knew the world to be tainted. It was only that with our bodies and souls close, our sweat mixing, our eyes meeting, our hands barely touching, any kind of contact would let me know that good could blossom in this cursed place of Earth.

When that love turned my life into a sin, into a marr on the order of everything, I still wondered how I could somehow go on when really, I was not. I was stuck. I was not able to affect the world, of course, everything was give and take. Good and bad. Equivolant exchange.

But I know that I changed him. I broke my own rules.

But I couldn't help it. I hated it and I hated it but I couldn't help it, his face, his eyes, those glasses, that kind look... he seemed almost as if he was.... as if Clow... and I...

But no. It was all impossible.

3) You Have Good Taste by Scream Hello

"I don't know what any of that crap is. Why would I want to read it?" Kurogane scowled at the boy across from him, who smiled gloriously back over the rim of a thick book. "Who the hell is Bougman Ann Burkman?"

"Bougman and Burkman! Oh, please, can't you? I'll play her, and you can play him. Unless you want it to go the other way, of course."

Kurogane rolled his eyes, but he had to admit he couldn't really get mad. It was only five minutes until both of them had to get back to class, and Fai had grinned that absolutely ludacrious grin that made his nose waggle oddly, and the coffee was slowly leaking calm energy back into his tired veins.

4) Grace Kelly by Mika

Mokona: WHY DON'T YOU LOVE MOKONA? MOKONA IS LOVELY!

Kurogane: Ger'off me you god damn manjuu!

Mokona: I try being kind, I try being mean, I try to flirt like Fai,

Kurogane: WHA-

Mokona: but Kuro-puu never, ever loves Mokona nearly as much!

Kurogane: WHY WOULD I- wait, what the freaking hell do you mean 'as much?!'

Mokona: Every time Kurogane just yells at Mokona and reduces her to tears!

Kurogane: It's your own god damn fault you're pathetic.

Mokona: WAAAH! Mokona is just having to have a loving relationship!

5) Shimmer by Fuel

If at one point the stone had meant something, all had faded with the weather and the moss which wove its way across his name.

Together they had stood together, never alone as long as the other's hand was there. The very idea that one could die and the other couldn't was absurd. Ludicrous. It had been impossible to love someone as much as they had loved the other. It was impossible that everything that had been held so perfect and bright between them had been able to fade, had been able to darken with death.

Death could not seperate them. It didn't make any sense. Life had been handed lovely to them together, but death had clawed its way into only one, not noticing the link between each breath and beat of their heart.

Now there was just a meaningless stone. And too much earth between them.

6) Stupid Girls by Pink

Souma did not give a damn what anyone said. This was the first thing Kurogane noticed about her.

She dressed like a man did. She cut off her hair so it wouldn't get in her face, so it wouldn't drip blood into her eyes during battle. She lived only in the present, she did not think of future or past, and never had anyone been able to even suggust she wear makeup or anything that could even possibly limit her movement.

She was, essentially, exactly what Kurogane wished he was.

So he worked hard, and his previous views on what gender, what ideas, and what love should be changed and dwindled away until the only belief was to be strong. To be strong the way Souma was- strong enough to save and protect those he loved. It would be years before he realized that the real strength lay not in being able to kill the man in front of him, but having the courage to take any wound for the one behind him.

7) Hop a Plane by Tegan and Sara

Though he had been generally confused by the phone call from his wife with a quick click as soon as he answered, things generally cleared up when he came home to see his things in a neat pile with a photograph of Kurogane framed and placed neatly on top.

Himawari had never been one to throw things how the window. It was much crueler sometimes to be kind, after all.

After searching through his things and gouging what was missing, Fai plastered a smile that looked more like a cringe on his face and walked up the stairs, knocking his customary three soft knocks.

She greeted him with the same exact smile.

It was relatively alright though. The end had played out politely. Filled with cringing smiles. And with a sense, almost, of relief. At the divorce trial where they decided who got the appartment (quite civily), Kurogane pointed out how amazed he was either one of them had ever thought the marriage to be a good idea anyway.

It was, after all, very screwed up.

8) Lullaby by Assemblage 23

The ranks were falling back.

Every day new soldiers came back dead, their bodies limp in arms, on stretchers, blood cupped in the broken flesh, face either slack or frozen in a moment of pain or terror, listless eyes gaping like drooping mouths.

They didn't let themselves think about it though.

Syaoran would write his letters, paper piling around him in his bunk like a small and usless shield. Kurogane would, occasionally, sit with him. Normally though, he would seat himself on a fallen bough with leaned half rotted on the edge of the camp. He would gouge the sky, and he would try not to wonder if it would be him who came back the next day.

it was easier to do this when Fai was there.

Him with one lost arm and Fai with one lost eye, they made an odd pair staring at a bloody sun strewn sky. Occasionally they would speak, the old uncomfortableness of the time they had spent as prisoners of war having faded into nothing now, words flowing easily or not at all, both comfortable. both good. The air around them didn't need to be filled with sound, but it was always so very good to have a beating heart next to you when a war raged around. Life reminded of itself as all the flesh and thought that made up a body formed something that was slowly becoming dangerously important beside the other on the log.

They didn't think about that though.

9) Nineteen by Tegan and Sara

Tomoyo met Sakura only once, and as it was with every Sakura, she belonged to someone else.

Even if Sakura, any Sakura, would never feel the same though, Tomoyo was greatful for the times when that other piece of her was able to come close enough for her to feel her own heart flutter. Close enough for Tomoyo to bring happiness to the girl. She knew of Sakura, and if she felt an ounce of pain at the three days of unrequited love in piffle, it was only that the one sided love hadn't been able to go on for longer. That she couldn't see Sakura happy, even if it wasn't with her, for just a little longer.

10) Running Up That Hill by Placebo

My brother;

I have taken over your life, I have broken your strings, and I have become your greatest hatered and love. And all through dying. Darling, I don't think I am worth that much.

I am no little beast, I am no little angel, and I am not the reason you will live only until you die. They thrust me into the sky and threw you into hell, but you escaped from hell, dear one. Whatever sickness you believe of yourself, you have lived through hell. You have lived through my death, and I am not modest or arrogant enough to make that anything other then what it is. You have lived through betrayal and sacrafice and love.

I am not selfish or selfless enough to swap our places. When I fell I saw your face and my frail and falling body reflected in your eyes, and I know that it was you who lived after I had died. This is not a mistake or a flaw, it is not the good or the horrible unless you encircle this tiny tragedy with your own life and soul. And I have never wanted to be anything more then your brother. I am not nor have I ever been your life's only purpose, your life's tragedy. I am your brother. And I am dead.

You are alive.

11) One Week by The Barenaked Ladies

"How can I help it if I think you're funny when you're mad!" Fai cried, dancing gleefully around the glaring ninja.

The ninja was not amused. "Would you shut the hell up!"

"I can't help it Kuro-rinta, this song was WRITTEN for us!"

"IT WAS NOT!'

"Tryin' hard not to smile though I feel bad!"

"...well..."

"I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral, can't understand what I mean, well you soon will! I have a tendancy to wear my mind on my sleeve!"

"...huh...."

"I have a history of takin' off my shirt!'

"WHAT?!"

12) Asleep by The Smiths

In the dark the lights played across the wet pavement, making the seperate small stones of it stand out shimmering grit. Ahead, Fai leapt into the pool of the lamplight and laughed, his face all stark shadows and indents, ghastly and haunted in the smile for a moment, and Sakura ran almost timidly after her brother, clasping his hand. Alcohol stank putrid on his breath.

"C'mon Fai, please, you're going to get hit by a car."

"That would be it, wouldn't it?" Sakura said nothing, trying not to feel the ice of his fingers or the bite of his words. "I screw everything up. Why not let a car just end it all? Send me to sleep, you know." He laughed and it echoed across the emptiness of the street, clutching the fragility of night and the beauty of the stars, and Sakura said nothing but clutched his hand tighter in her own. His fingers didn't close around hers.

"It's all right. You don't. You don't screw everything up."

13) Boats & Birds by Gregory & the Hawk

"I'm thinking purple." Tomoyo said thoughtfully, pushing the fabric square forwards, turning the lollypop over in her mouth as her black brows came together. "What do you think?"

"Huh?"

Tomoyo turned to Sakura, whose eyes reflected the tree greened light of the window, the warm glow falling over her hair and small shoulders. A smile rested almost hesitantly, unsure on her lips.

And even though Tomoyo knew it wasn't for her, she found herself smiling as well.

Well, that's it. Review please!


	12. The Only Truth

When I took his hand, I knew that it was selfish. That it was terrible, but in that moment, there was nothing in me that could care. Every world may unravel again and again, but I will be happy as long as his life remains intact. As long as we get a second chance to live. And though I had only ever in my life thought to do good, at least try to do good, this dark decision rested certain in me, tainting my own life and still, I could not care.

We will live. I will be selfish this time. And as we rose into the air and I finally spoke those precious three words, my own greatest truth, I knew that it had not been the right choice. It had never been the right choice. But it was the only one I could make.

And as our hands rested, a lovely discovered treasure in that small touch of flesh, the promise of more, logic continued to unravel behind as we vanished from this life, ready to clutch at our stolen chance of a new one.

A/N: Hehe..... ^_^' *scratches head* Um... well... I suppose this is you guys's present for my birthday. You know, I think on our birthdays we should all write fanfiction for other people. There are actually two people online right now who's birthdays are coming (or passed) and I promised them KuroFai. You guys don't mind sharing, do you? Like, if I wrote one one-shot? You know who you are.

Oh! And just to make this authors note longer then the drabble itself, did anyone see the credit page on the onemanga scan of the latest Tsubasa chapter? Fai and Himawari were together. And though I am in fact a slave to canon, if I were to ever stray, just for shits and giggles I would TOTALLY support that pairing. I mean, seriously, they'd be SO screwed up.

... review please...


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